Vanesa

Sonia Alejandra Rodríguez

Each year, more butterflies disappeared with the waning rain and Vanesa was left with the spirits of her dead relatives. One day during her morning shift at Augustine’s Diner, her mother’s spirit showed up—hazy at first, as if waking up from a dream. At first, Vanesa wasn’t sure it was a spirit she was seeing at all. She had worked doubles, stayed out late, drank and smoked, and barely slept. Maybe she was finally losing it, she thought. It wasn’t until the late morning Inland Empire sun shone through the window, when Vanesa felt burning heat on her forearm, that she realized the spirit of a woman she hadn’t seen in 20 years was standing next to her.

It was like being hit with ice water. Unable to gasp for air, Vanesa dropped her order pad on the table she was serving and walked out of the diner. She rushed to her car. Her boss’s screams demanding she get back inside grew faint as she sped away.

Vanesa pulled up to her grandmother’s house in a cloud of dust.

“I can’t get the grains of dirt from this morning’s search out of my hair,” Nana said as Vanesa slammed the door open. Nana sat in front of the TV in her worn and stained Lay-Z-Boy recliner, brushing the long strands of her hair. Nana insisted there was water in their land somewhere. She’d spend hours outside, day and night, with the dirt—digging, massaging, praying. Now their brown, dried out front yard had holes everywhere. Vanesa was tired of begging her grandmother to not spend so much time outside digging in the dirt, explaining that the land was eroded and there was nothing to find. But Nana insisted the land could be healed. Vanesa stood behind the recliner still unable to speak, unsure if once she opened her mouth she would cry or scream.

“Ven,” Nana implored, not breaking her stare from the telenovela she watched. “Sit,” she pointed to the space she’d made between her legs on the recliner. That had been Vanesa’s favorite spot when she was a child. She’d rest on her grandmother as they watched TV and counted the butterfly tattoos running up and down Nana’s arms and legs. “It’s who we are” is all Nana ever said about them. As Vanesa got older and heavier, and her grandmother more frail, she’d scoot down to the leg rest cuddling her grandmother’s soft, brown varicose legs. Until Vanesa got too grown and too big to share the recliner at all.

Vanesa wiped the hot tears streaming down her face with her apron. The makeup, dust, and tears on her white apron were brown and grainy against the grease and ketchup stains. She threw her apron on the couch as she reached for her grandmother's hand, motioning her to take the spot by the legs that had belonged to little Vanesa. Once she was nestled behind her grandmother, Vanesa took the brush and continued to comb her grandmother’s hair. They laid together for hours, in silence, watching TV.

“She came to me first,” Nana finally said. Vanesa leaned up. “I told her where to find you.”

Vanesa was ready to jump out the recliner, but her grandmother leaned into her, letting all of her weight fall on Vanesa’s chest. Though a frail, tiny woman, Nana was heavy enough to keep Vanesa put. Vanesa found the pressure safe and comforting despite the desiccation she felt in her chest.

“Why would you do that?” Her voice broke.

✱✱✱✱

Vanesa sat at the bar at Bertie’s nursing a Blue Moon. The dripping condensation on the glass felt chilly against her dry, cracked hands. There were more people in the bar than she expected for a bright mid-afternoon. But the darkness of the seedy bar was what she needed. The mirror across from her was plastered with stickers: “At least we’ll never run out of beer,” “Save Water Drink Beer,” “Beer tastes better than water.”

There was also a large poster advertising the Butterfly Festival: “November 1 & 2. Come for the fried food, the music, the drinks. Stay for the magic.” The Butterfly Festival, once a ceremony meant to honor the butterflies which stopped in their town before continuing their journey south and then into the spirit world, had turned into a large tourist trap that brought the LA hipsters and Chipsters (Chicano hipsters) to the Inland Empire.

“Cheers,” she heard someone say and it brought her back to her body.

Vanesa turned to the end of the bar where her uncle Jose’s spirit lifted a glass of dark liquor in her direction. She gave him a subtle and quick nod, not wanting to bring attention to herself and the ghost in the room. Her uncle Jose died decades ago in a car crash because of drunk driving. Fewer butterflies each year meant fewer relatives could come and go from the spirit world. A few years ago, when he arrived with the few butterflies that still visited, he decided to stay. Self-punishment for the way he had lived his life, not worthy of traveling back and forth to the spirit world.

“Another one?” the bartender asked, glass already under the tap. Vanesa’s glass was half empty but she nodded anyway and chugged what was left of her beer.

“Thanks.” Vanesa fought the urge to burp, afraid she’d burp in the bartender’s face. He was her type—tall, husky, and bearded. “You new here?”

He gave her a tiny smirk. Vanesa decided then she would go home with him at the end of the night. She drowned the gnawing feeling spreading in the pit of her stomach with frosty beer.

When she was fifteen, her great-great-aunts’ spirits told her men are games. Tía Gertrudis and Tía Socorro were twins. Although in their spirit forms they resembled mother and daughter because tía Socorro died at a young age and tía Gertrudis made it to old age.

“Men are like chess,” tía Gertrudis had told Vanesa, after coming home to Nana crushed from catching her boyfriend cheating. “The king is useless. The queen, that’s you, is the most powerful piece. Strategize, be cunning, and don’t get captured. Say it back.”

“I am the queen. I won’t get captured,” Vanesa repeated through her sobs.

“Por favor,” tía Socorro pushed her sister out of the way. “Men are like checkers. They want to jump you. Make sure you control the board, finish first, and get your crown, girl.” Vanesa didn’t understand what any of that meant, but the women burst out laughing, filling the room with their soft belly roars.

As Vanesa finished her second beer, the bartender placed another one in front of her.

“On the house,” he winked at her.

“Aren’t you sweet. What’s your name?” she leaned forward on the bar, sticking out her chest, grateful she had worn her good bra.

“Hey, Damen! Delivery!” they heard someone in the back call.

He pointed to the back door, “Damen. Be right back.” Vanesa nodded, feeling warm and more relaxed than when she got there. She covered her new pint with a coaster and went to the bathroom.

The smell of piss and peanuts slapped her as she opened the door. She relieved herself and noticed her pee was an orange-yellow. I need to drink more water, she thought. But she refused to buy bottled water and pay for tap water at restaurants and bars. The governor’s restrictions in California were meant to regulate water use across the state but as far as Vanesa was concerned, not everyone was experiencing the drought the same way. Why was their water turned off once or twice a week while assholes in LA were still over watering their lawns?

She went to wash her hands and there was barely a trickle of water coming out of the faucet. Fuck. Vanesa leaned into the sink to pat her face with water. Her mother’s spirit appeared behind her when she went to look at herself in the mirror.

“Leave me alone.” Vanesa continued to fix her hair and her makeup. After years of convening with spirits, Vanesa was no longer startled whenever they randomly popped up near her. The low light in the bathroom gave her mother’s spirit an eerie glow but still Vanesa could not deny they looked alike.

Nana had framed pictures of Mari, Vanesa’s mother, all over the house. Mari at the Butterfly Festival as a child holding a funnel cake in front of the ferris wheel. Mari as a teenager in a waitress apron outside Augustine’s. Mari as a young adult, swollen belly and tired eyes, outside of Nana’s house. Photos of Mari in LA, Mari in Chicago, Mari in New York, Mari in London, Mari in Paris, Mari in Dubai. The photo of pregnant Mari was the only photo of the two of them together. 

Her mother’s spirit stared at her with weepy eyes.

“Make sure you catch a ride out of here at the Butterfly Festival,” Vanesa tapped the poster on the bathroom door with her nails. “I don’t need you anymore.” She walked out of the bathroom with prickly tears in the corners of her eyes, and a suffocating dryness in her throat.

A shot of tequila with a lime wedge on a white napkin sat next to her beer when she made it back to the bar.

“Are you a mind reader or something?” she forced a giggle out.

“Or something.” Damen pulled out bottles of beer from a box and put them in the fridge behind him.

 “You’re not going to let me take this alone, are you?” Vanesa swooped all her hair to the side so that it would cascade over her shoulder. Damen picked up an already filled shot glass. “Okay, well, this is getting creepy. Can you guess what I want now?” she smiled and took her shot.

After watching a few episodes of “Living Single” on mute on the TV above the bar and a few shots later, she lured Damen into the stock room and took all of him in. His gentleness, his constant “is this good?”, and his incessant eye contact made her want to cry. She turned herself around to face the wall covered in more stickers and posters. Damen pulled at her from her wide hips and kissed the top of her shoulder. Vanesa focused on the trail of paper butterflies pinned to the wall between the stickers and posters. With the air vent above them, the butterflies appeared to be flapping their wings, struggling to fly away, trapped under the pushpins. She placed the palms of her hands against the pins, pushing them further into the wall and into her skin. She closed her eyes, listening to Damen’s soft moans, entranced by the pain in her hands.

✱✱✱✱

Vanesa slept in her car in the parking lot of Augustine’s. She had the first shift and was actively avoiding Nana and her mother’s spirit. When her boss unlocked the door to the diner, she rushed to the bathroom to freshen up.

“You smell pathetic,” he sneered. “Clean up and then wipe the tables and the counters.”

At any other place, Vanesa would’ve been fired by now. But everyone who worked at Augustine’s had something going on. Folks didn’t go to Augustine’s for the service, or even the food for that matter, but because the boss let folks be—no questions asked.

Vanesa clocked in and chose the cleanest apron she could find on the hook. She grabbed her order pad and pens and headed to the customers that must’ve walked in while she was in the bathroom—a Black couple, snuggling on the same side of the booth.

“Hi, welcome to Augustine’s. I’m Vee and I’ll be your server today. Can I start you off with some drinks?”

The couple shared a menu, which annoyed Vanesa.

“I’ll have a strawberry milkshake,” the woman said.

“I’ll have the grapefruit juice,” he added.

Vanesa jotted the order on her pad. “Just so you know, we no longer serve fresh fruit.” Vanesa pointed to the top of the menu where a piece of paper has been taped explaining what is and isn’t available because of the drought. “All fruit and veggie related items are from concentrate or frozen, is that alright?”

Vanesa didn’t care much for what they wanted. She only asked because Joe made her ask all customers despite the large sign also taped to the front door and the notices on all of the menus.

“Yea, that’s fine.” The man said.

“Anything else?”

“We’ll have two of the breakfast platters,” the woman added.

Vanesa half smiled and took the menus, “Your order will be right out.”

“You forgot to ask them if they wanted water?” Vanesa heard her cousin’s spirit say. She glimpsed at the spirit near the couple and walked away before the couple could catch her reaction.

“Cass, you know we stopped serving water years ago.” Vanesa said under her breath.

“That’s not true. You gave water to that party of 6 yesterday, remember? They came in with their suits and dresses like they were movie stars?”

Vanesa plopped the frozen strawberries into the blender. The loud whirring swallowed Cassy’s words but also made Vanesa’s head hurt.

“We haven’t served free water to customers in years, Cass. What’s going on with you?” The diner stopped serving water when the governor first restricted water usage years ago. And although most folks have forgotten about the restrictions, her boss prefered to charge customers for the water—to protect the planet and line his pockets.

Vanesa took the drinks to the couple, still lost in each other’s eyes, completely unaware of the world around them.

“Here you go, folks,” Vanesa placed the drinks on the table. The couple didn’t look up. Their sugary cuteness made her nauseous.

The rest of her shift was slow. The morning crowd was usually truck drivers looking for a pick me up after an overnight drive, elderly men who sat at the counter and drank what passed for coffee while they complained about the government, divorced dads treating their children to syrupy pancakes on their “day with the kids.” Vanesa could make more tips if she flirted with the men coming in and out but she didn’t have it in her. She was relieved when her shift ended, avoiding the lunch rush and avoiding Rafael, the second shift fry cook who turned out to be not as single as he claimed to be the night he and Vanesa got together.

She found her grandmother out front of their home with a shovel in one hand and a PBR tallboy in the other. The butterflies on her arms and legs looked like they rested on her more than they resembled colored tattoos, as if Vanesa could go up to them and they’d fly away.

“Any luck?” Vanesa asked as she walked past her grandmother and into the house, not waiting for Nana to respond. The answer was always some long story involving some past relative with the ability to heal the earth, and lineage, and ancestry, and destiny, and duty, but never any water. Vanesa walked back to the front yard with a large floppy hat and placed it on Nana’s head.

“I could smell the man sweat on you from here,” Nana handed Vanesa the tallboy and struck the earth with her shovel. Vanesa thought of Damen and couldn’t help but smile. She pushed the thought away when she saw her mother’s spirit approach them.

“Don’t make me sit on you again,” Nana said as she tossed dirt to the side. “Talk to her.”

Last night’s binge and this morning’s shift had made Vanesa too tired to run away this time. “I’ll talk to her if you go inside. You’re gonna get heat stroke out here, old lady.” The heat waves in the distance made the houses down the block appear to be bobbing up and down.

“Old lady?” Nana took her tallboy from Vanesa. “¡Mira quien habla!” Nana pointed at Vanesa’s wrinkles on her forehead and between her eyebrows, lines similar to the lines of the old dirt. Vanesa watched Nana walk inside, and noticed her step was slower and more tentative.

“When I was a girl, these streets were lined with green. It was all of the manicured, perfect, identical lawns and homes that made me leave. Now this place is a desert,” Mari said as she walked around the holes Nana had made.

“Say what you came here to say.” Vanesa knelt down to the earth, in an effort to avoid her mother’s gaze. She grabbed a handful of dirt and squeezed. The rock bits dug into her skin. She grabbed more and rolled it between her palms.

“I plan to leave with the butterflies. You know I was never good at staying in one place, baby.”

Vanesa felt a fire growing deep in her belly, as if she had her own little sun inside. “I’m not your damn baby.” She continued to mash the dirt and was surprised to find it was softening. She returned the darkened soil to the earth and scratched at the brittle land around it.

“Like it or not, you came from me. You’re in me, like I’m in you.”

Vanesa shook her head. The quiet hum of pain in her hands calmed her. She had played this moment many times in her head as a child—what she’d say to her mother if they ever were face to face again. In all of the possible scenarios, she never imagined she’d be talking to her mother’s spirit. Vanesa gave up wanting to be with her mother and decided that Nana was her real mother early on. For years, Nana kept an altar to Mari, with candles and postcards from all the places she’d been, and prayed to the gods to return her home safely. Vanesa couldn’t differentiate between the altars to their dead ancestors and the altar for Mari so she decided her mother might as well be dead, too.

“That dirt under your nails? That’s me.” Mari continued.

Vanesa chewed on the chapped bits on the corners of her lips. All of the feelings for her mother she had denied herself all of these years, bubbled inside her mixed with last night’s beer and tequila. The smell of fried oil from the diner on her skin made her want to throw up, until there wasn’t anything left. The Inland Empire sun was nearing its peak, threatening to burn everything in its path.

“I always wanted to come back.” Mari stepped toward Vanesa.

Vanessa wiped beads of sticky sweat from her face, leaving dirt residue on her forehead.

“After I left you with your grandmother that first year, I said to myself: ‘I’ll only be gone a year.’”

Vanesa licked her lips and she tasted her saltiness, “I was ten, Mari.”

“One year turned to two.”

“One year turned to twenty.”

“After a while, I didn’t think I could come back.”

The hammering in Vanesa’s head intensified. She dug her hands into the dirt and massaged and massaged, stunned by how the dirt softened at her touch. But there was still so much broken earth around her. “None of this matters,” she said and got up, wiped her hands on her legs. “What did you think was going to happen when you showed up as spirit? You’d think I’d forgive you? We’d be a happy family again?” Vanesa couldn’t take much of the heat and made her way inside.

“I never wanted to be a mother!”

Vanesa stopped cold in her tracks. What is this? Vanesa was too grown to care what her mother wanted or didn’t want. None of it mattered. Her mother had already decided to leave with the butterflies. What was the point?

Vanesa kicked at the dried, flaky earth beneath her feet. The top layer of dirt was tightly packed but Vanesa kicked and kicked and because the dirt was so withered it eventually loosened and she was kicking up chunks of dirt and rock. She kicked harder, and her heart and head pounded inside her.

“I wanted you to choose me!” Vanesa balled her fists. “Is that what you want to hear? That I wanted you? Whether you wanted to be my mother or not, I wanted you. You should’ve chosen me.”

Mari reached for Vanesa but Vanesa moved away.

“Stay the fuck away from me!” Vanesa wiped her tears. The smell of moist soil stayed with her.

✱✱✱✱

The Butterfly Festival brought the tourists and an unprecedented heat wave to town.

“The sun is angry,” Nana said in the morning before Vanesa headed to the diner.

Staying away from her mother’s spirit also meant trying to stay away from Nana’s house as much as possible. From work she’d go to Bertie’s, meet Damen in the stock room, and sleep it all off in her car. She had tried sleeping at Damen’s but he was too much of a cuddler for her taste. He deserved better and she tried to give him more but when she tapped into her heart it felt as dry and cracked as the earth. She slept in her car and only went to Nana’s to shower, and for clean clothes.

At work, Vanesa busied herself serving the hoards of customers that strolled in waiting for the festival to start or those looking for shelter from the heat. Her boss made her put up more signs that said “No Free Water.” During a lull-period in the rush of customers, she cut and threaded garlands of butterflies to decorate the diner and to pass to the customers. She alternated cut outs of orange and yellow monarchs with cut outs of butterflies that read: “Eat at Augustine’s.”

“In my day, the butterflies were sacred. Oh, how I wish I could be back there again.” Vanesa heard Cass’s spirit retort as she continued to cut the paper butterflies.

Vanesa let out a deep sigh. Her family’s spirits never bothered her. Even when the butterflies started disappearing with the rain, and fewer and fewer butterflies arrived each year, which had meant fewer ancestors would come visit and some would have to stay and they started appearing to Vanesa, she didn’t mind. She wasn’t even afraid. But since her mother’s arrival, she was done with all of them.

 “I wish you could go back, too! Do me a favor: when you get there tell everyone about this fucking drought and how it’s killing the butterflies and how that’ll mean one day you’ll be a pain in my ass.”

Cass held her chest and gasped. She disappeared and Vanesa assumed she was on her way to rat her out to Nana. Her words left a bitter taste in her mouth and she knew she’d have to apologize later. But she’d deal with it then. For now, she took two garlands and headed out to Bertie’s where she’d hide out until the treacherous sun went down and she and Damen would head over to the festival.

Vanesa had never seen Bertie’s so crowded. She squeezed her way through herds of women wearing flowing skirts and crop tops and men in bermuda shorts wearing socks with sandals mixed with the regular, worn, locals.

“Is there a cult in town?” She leaned over the bar and gave Damen a kiss on the cheek.

“Yea, they only require you to give up your fashion sense and your first born.” Damen laughed.

“My mother would fit right in.” She let out a loud “ha” aware Damen hadn’t heard her.

“What’s going on over there?” Vanesa grabbed the beer Damen poured her and pointed with her lips to the other bartender taking dollar bills and writing down something on a notepad.

Damen pointed to the TV screening the weather report with a chyron that read “chance of rain. First rain in two years.”

“He’s taking bets,” Damen explained.

“The sky is on fire right now. There’s no way!” Vanesa laughed. The idea of rain sounded too good to be true. She wanted to feel the brisk sensation on her skin. She missed the smell of wet dirt. But she also didn’t want to get her hopes up.

“You want to make a bet?” Damen wiped a glass.

Vanesa shook her head, “I’d rather spend my money right here, thanks.” She took a sip of her beer. The cold liquid cooled her burning insides.

“Well how about you and I make a bet?” Damen continued. “If it rains, you’ll finally agree to be my girlfriend.”

Vanesa almost choked on her beer, “And if it doesn’t rain?”

“We’ll stay the same.” He handed a white lady with a flower headband on her head two beers.

Vanesa knew what that meant. If it rained, everything would change. If it didn’t rain, everything would change anyway. She had tried being the girlfriend before and it never ended well.

“How about we go do it in the stockroom now and we forget about the rain? I’ll even cuddle you afterwards.” Vanesa smiled but she felt the change had already happened. She could see it in his face. She hadn’t answered the way he wanted her to. She was never going to be what he wanted her to be. Dried dirt doesn’t turn into water no matter how much pressure is applied.

✱✱✱✱

At the festival, Vanesa and Damen walked around sharing a funnel cake.

“I have to go find my grandma, help her with the family altar,” she said as she shoved a piece of sugary fried dough in her mouth.

Damen took the rest of the funnel cake, “I’ll be in the Bertie’s booth most of the night. Meet by the ferris wheel later?” Vanesa nodded.

Nana had the altar set up by the time Vanesa made it to her. A large fold out table with a red table cloth was covered in cempasuchil flowers, paper butterflies, food and drink, and photos of their dead relatives. Some of the spirits of her relatives were already there: Cass, Uncle Jose, the twins, and others she rarely talked to, and of course, her mother.

The butterflies arrived with the wind. The glow of their wings made streaks of flames across the bright blue sky. The butterflies passed through the festival, some stopping at the altars their relatives had set up for them and some gathered in the nearby trees, bringing the trees to life. The relatives that did make it to Nana’s altar, laughed and danced and ate and drank. They hugged one another and chatted with Nana.

“Smells like rain,” Mari said, in the direction of the butterfly-covered tree. Vanesa turned to look at her mother. There was a dampness in the air, a stickiness, that made it hard for Vanesa to breathe.

Vanesa saw a dark cloud rolling in. She was ready to tell her mother off one more time but Nana’s eyes caught hers first. Fine, she thought and kept her mouth shut.

“I always dreaded this part,” Mari said. Vanessa tightened her jaw.

“The waiting, the watching, the smiling, the nodding. I didn’t want all this to be my life. The having to take care of so many people, even the dead ones, I mean. It all felt too much.”

I was one person. One tiny person, Vanesa thought. She focused on the tree in front of her, mimicking the inhaling and exhaling pattern of the butterflies’ flapping wings.

  “Leaving was the best decision I could make for myself. I know a mother’s not supposed to say those things. But it’s the truth. You need to leave, too. Otherwise, her life will become your life.” Mari used her chin to point at her mother. “The butterflies will claim you, with no regard for what you want. You’ll be stuck taking care of them for the rest of your life.”

Vanesa turned to her grandmother. The old woman’s laugh echoed. Probably laughing at her own jokes, Vanesa thought and chuckled. Nana’s hands waved in the air when she spoke, as if she conducted an orchestra. The soft glow of the setting sun gave Nana a shimmery outline. I’d give my life for this woman. She turned to tell her mother off, but her mother’s spirit was gone. A bolt of pain struck Vanessa’s heart. 

Vanesa ran to the ferris wheel. She zig zagged past strangers eating fried food, drinking beers, children chasing each other with plastic butterfly wings on their backs. The rolling darkness was visible past the strings of Christmas lights used to decorate the festival booths. Up ahead, she saw a lightning bolt and soon afterwards she heard the loud rumble of thunder. People around her cheered and clapped.

She found Damen standing by the ferris wheel as he had promised, holding two plastic cups of beer. Vanesa felt a raindrop on her scalp and the coolness was electrifying. More raindrops fell on her face, on her eyes, on her chest, and it was like melting. She flung herself into Damen’s arms, crisp beer spilled down her back. But she didn’t care. The rain fell and no one ran. They danced and cheered and kicked the muddy dirt. Vanesa held on to Damen and he held her.

Damen pointed to a streak of orange and yellow above them. A flame spread against the shadowy blue gray sky. More butterflies, Vanesa thought. People waved their hands in the air and the butterflies weaved through the crowd. They danced through the festival, stopping at the altars, and taking as many ancestors as they could. Their flapping wings made the trees swirl. Vanesa reached out her hand into the sky and into the flame. The butterflies flew past and each hit to her hand came with a shock.

A butterfly landed on her forearm. Another butterfly landed on her. And another. They laid their burning wings on her skin, leaving imprints of themselves—like painted lips on a lover’s body.

Vanesa screamed at the sky, tears rolled down her face. Her body buzzed all over from the new butterfly tattoos. I’ll always be a part of you, Mari’s words rang in her ears.

Writer’s Notebook

I had the idea for my short story, “Vanesa,” after reading a news article on the declining populations of monarch butterflies. Unfortunately, the monarch butterfly has now been classified as an endangered species. I wanted to write a story that captured what it means to experience loss and grief on a personal level but also as a consequence of the climate crisis. In this stage of my life, I write a lot about inheritance and generational trauma. I am very interested in what we know about what is passed down to us and what we don’t know is passed down to us from our family and ancestors. In this story, I trace Vanesa to her mother and to her grandmother, but in my head, the story goes further back. I also wanted to create a main character that was messy and processing their own grief and trauma at the same time they were expected to be exceptional. Although I did live in Southern California for some time, I still had to do research on the macro and micro experiences of droughts and on the migration patterns of the monarch butterfly in California. I also learned a great deal about dirt and soil. I am grateful to the COUNTERCLOCK editors for seeing me and my story.

About the writer